The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"When I Am Weak…"
"Every act of obedience by a believer involves a "resurrection" of sorts, whereby the strength of God is made perfect in our weakness."
Life with God through the Lord Jesus Christ in our present existence involves an inverse reality and experience.
"When I am weak, then am I strong" (II Corinthians 12:10).
Fact, the truth of God's Word, declares that when we find ourselves at our lowest ebb, the Lord's high tide of "rivers of living water" abound within us. Feeling, of course, tells us precisely the opposite (John 7:38). Emotion and sensation declare that when we are weak, we are weak. Certainly, this is true in the earthly sense. Our human faculties possess no inherent strength to live as God would have us live. The indwelling Spirit of Christ, however, ever abides within us as our "hope of glory," that is, our hope of a life honoring to our Lord (Colossians 1:27). The Apostle Paul speaks to this challenging, but encouraging truth in the most stark terms:
"if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (enliven) your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:10-11).
Our human faculties and members do not yet dwell in the direct presence of God. They are "dead" in this sense, and thus require His enlivening to enable our proper thoughts, words, and actions. Conversely, our spirits are alive in Christ, and serve as the means through which He motivates, guides, and empowers the life to which He calls us. When we trust and submit to God in heart, the power of the Holy Spirit energizes our minds, wills, and bodies to obey God. Indeed, every act of obedience by a believer involves a "resurrection" of sorts, whereby the strength of God is made perfect in the weakness of our humanity.
This truth constitutes our human frailty and weakness in far different terms than we normally perceive. Paul stated the enigma plainly: "I take pleasure in infirmities (weakness)" (I Corinthians 12:10). The Apostle did not state that he "felt" pleasure in weakness. He did however, "take" pleasure in the awareness that when we recognize our need, we are far more likely to avail ourselves of God's supply. By faith, Paul chose to see his inabilities as the scene of his Lord's super abundant presence, involvement, and enabling. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead" (II Corinthians 1:9). Our brother of old found his Lord able to transform the tomb of weakness into a temple of resurrection, just as He had accomplished in His own rising.
We shall find the same as we recognize our weakness for what it is, namely, the conduit through which Christ lives in us, and we live through Him. Few themes more directly or implicitly grace Paul's writings, and no theme more establishes our hearts, minds, hands, and feet to join our brother in discovery of the inverse wonder of "when I am weak, then am I strong."
"For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God."
(II Corinthians 13:4)
Weekly Memory Verse
The Root of the righteous yieldeth fruit.
(Proverb 12:12)
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